Kate Murphy
RealTime
Kate Murphy, Prayers of a Mother, video still
Kate Murphy’s digital video Prayers of a Mother, 2001, featured in the remembrance + the moving image exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne (2003). Sydney-based Murphy graduated with honours from the Australian National University in 1999 and has been resident artist at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space and the Canberra School of Art. Fiona Tripp writes in the remembrance catalogue, “Central to Prayers of a Mother is the voice of Anne Murphy, mother to artist Kate and her 7 siblings. With great emotion, she describes the prayers she makes daily for her children and immediate family, expressing her hopes for their health and happiness, and specifically her passionate desire that they will all return to the Catholic faith. The mother occupies the central screen of the 5-screen installation, but rather than her face we see a close-up of her hands holding her prayer book and rosary, her gestures echoing the longing in her voice. On either side of this screen are 2 projections which show the children’s faces as they listen.” Prayers… is regarded by many as one of the most powerful video installation creations of recent times. Compared with the works of Viola et al, it is brief at 15 minutes but its potency is concentrated and the durably memorable. Murphy’s next work is eagerly awaited.
RealTime issue #57 Oct-Nov 2003 pg. 42
